Lecture: The Glamorous Stranger by Andrew Kravchenko

Fri, November 20, 2009 • 12:00 PM • Sinclair Suite, Texas Union 3.128

Mr. Kravchenko owns The Victor Kravchenko Archive. He spent over two decades collecting, assembling and acquiring ownership rights to all of his father’s works and items pertaining to his life.

Victor Kravchenko, a disside nt, defector and author, TheGlamorousStranger. A modern-day myth: The extraordinary story of one man’s struggle, sacrifice and triumph to bring truth to the world. A chronicle of a son’s search to understand his heroic but very complicated father and discover the personal and collective impact of his father’s actions and to fulfill the legacy the father began but could not finish in a world where nothing was what it seemed.

In a time when totalitarianism and expansionism is resurgent in Russia and countries all around the world, and when even in America dissent is increasingly being suppressed, it is more important than ever to tell the stories of men like Victor Kravchenko who risked everything to defend every individual’s right to freedom. As he himself said, “The mouths of citizens can be stopped from criticizing the regime for a few years…Millions of free people can be herded into concentration camps. But it is impossible to stifle the spirit of freedom. It is immortal as life itself.”